As a child, Norwegian-Turkish filmmaker Nefise Lorentzen sent balloon letters to Allah—messages filled with all manner of questions and concerns. Still looking for answers today, she sets out to examine the status of women within Islam. Traveling to Cairo, Istanbul, and Oslo, Lorentzen has tea with Egyptian feminist Nawal El Saadawi, finds inspiration in the life of 90-year-old author Gamal Al-Banna, conducts an eye-opening interview with a fundamentalist cleric, and searches out her grandmother’s Sufi-influenced spiritual path, which steered clear of extremism and male dominance. As Lorentzen struggles through this maze, she finds that some questions extend beyond Islam and that there is a link between the three Abrahamic religions and the oppression of women.

The path Steven Rockefeller has taken on his intellectual and spiritual journey would very likely surprise his great-grandfather, the tycoon John D. Rockefeller, Sr. A convert to Buddhism, Steven Rockefeller has been teaching Religion at Middlebury College in Vermont for almost 20 years.